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Blasphemy for the Day: In God We Trust?

A response to the BBC’s Thought for the Day. You don’t have to be a believer to enjoy a day of rest.

This documentary, about the town of King, N. Carolina, brings into sharp focus the culture wars raging over the issue of the separation of church and state. Scott Burdick made it in response to the furore “ignited by a returning Afghanistan Veteran who threatened to sue the town if they didn’t remove the Christian Flag from the public Veteran’s Memorial.” You can read his blog post here. It examines not only the Christian attitude to what faith entails, but also other religions. Nor is Christianity represented as a monolithic bloc – some churches were appalled at the fundamentalist reaction.

I think it’s important not to focus too much on N. Carolina being a Bible Belt state. It’s too much of a cop-out to say, “Well, this isn’t my town or state.” Hannah Arendt’s unsettling notion of the banality of evil is more disturbing when the context is universal. And no, I don’t think evil is too strong a word, given what some of the people are saying. The Holocaust was built on similar attitudes, expressed as political action.